SAUDI WARNS OIL PRICES COULD SPIKE
WASHINGTON/TEHRAN/DUBAI:Saudi Arabia’s crown prince warned in an interview broadcast on Sunday that oil prices could spike to “unimaginably high numbers” if the world does not come together to deter Iran, but said he would prefer a political solution to a military one. Speaking to the CBS programme 60 Minutes, Mohammed bin Salman also denied that he ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives nearly a year ago, but said he bears “full responsibility” as the leader of his country.
While Khashoggi’s death sparked a global uproar and tarnished the crown prince’s reputation, the Trump administration’s tense standoff with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s arch-foe, has more recently dominated US policy toward Riyadh, especially after the September 14 attacks on the heartland of the Saudi oil industry.
“If the world does not take a strong and firm action to deter Iran, we will see further escalations that will threaten world interests,” the crown prince said. “Oil supplies will be disrupted and oil prices will jump to unimaginably high numbers that we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.”
IRAN DEFENDS REBEL ATTACKS ON OIL SITES
Iran said this month’s missileand-drone attack by Yemen’s rebels on major Saudi oil sites was an act of “legitimate defence” by the Iran-allied Houthis.
The September 14 assault was claimed by the Houthis, though the kingdom says it was “unquestionably sponsored by Iran”. Saudi Arabia has been at war with the Houthis since March 2015. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi on Monday called Saudi accusations “baseless”.
KHASHOGGI CASE: UN EXPERT SLAMS MBS
A UN human rights expert who led a probe into the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi criticised Saudi Arabia’s crown prince on Monday for “trying to create distance” between himself and the execution.
Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, was reacting to an interview with MBS broadcast by US media on Sunday.